Dual Citizen

Strap into your gaming chair, pull up a juice box and launch right into 1997 with ‘Fresh Splash’ – the single from newest Jam Family Records artist Dual Citizen. This song is a sun-drenched sonic odyssey that feels the mix of Crusin’ USA and Wave Racer 64 and genuinely leave no option but to get up and move your feet. Stream the song below and check out our chat with the artist!

Dual Citizen – Fresh Splash [tnj005]

ThatNewJam: Looks like the Dual Citizen project went live on SoundCloud 2 years ago… is this your first dive into music? What does your musical background look like?

Dual Citizen: I’ve been making electronic music for years and before that I used to play in rock bands, including a punk band in Montreal called Fake Blood. After moving to the U.S., I started focusing more on making music on a computer.

TNJ: Coolest/weirdest story to come from your music making career?

DC: Arcade Fire once opened for me! I was playing bass for my friend Rick’s band Cosmos Quazar, and he got Arcade Fire to perform as his opening act at an album release show. The English-speaking music scene in Montreal was pretty small and close knit, and that was before Arcade Fire’s album Funeral, before they became this huge phenomenon.

TNJ: Have you played any shows live?

DC: Not as Dual Citizen. I used to play live all the time in bands in Montreal, but with electronic music, for me, it’s more about the joy of making music and listening to it than performing it. Plus, I feel like it would be boring to watch me stand behind a laptop, so I’d first need to develop a visual accompaniment and get a video projector or something.

DC: I grew up in Nelson, B.C., Canada. It’s a small, beautiful town, and like many kids who grow up in small, beautiful towns, I wanted to get out as soon as possible and live somewhere more exciting. So as soon as I could, I moved to Vancouver, then Ottawa, then Montreal, then Boston and now I’m in Austin! Best city I’ve lived in yet, although I do miss Vancouver and Montreal a lot.

TNJ: How did you get turned on to Submithub?

DC: I think I received an email from Jason at IndieShuffle who created Submithub. Seemed like a good idea, plus I like how if you pay $1 with your submission, the blog/label is required to provide a few sentences of feedback. That has been extremely helpful, especially the constructive feedback. Music producers toil away in solitude and it can be difficult to get an objective opinion from a blogger or label.

TNJ: Why did you choose to submit to ThatNewJam?

DC: Like me, you value music that evokes emotion, regardless of what genre it’s in. I feel like my music kind of straddles some different genres and can be difficult to pigeonhole, so I thought you might be more open-minded to this blend of electronic genres. So much electronic music is trying to fit into these microgenres, which is cool, too. I like a lot of that music. But I just don’t want to do that.

TNJ: What else do you have planned?

DC: Right now, I’m actually starting a new project called Bern Ban, where I’m creating dozens and dozens of instrumental beats — mostly hip hop/trap and R&B — with the goal of teaming up with vocalists from Austin and elsewhere. I want to produce more tracks with vocals, because they seem to connect with a wider range of people, but I can’t sing well or write great lyrics. I’ve seen such great things come out of other people’s collaborations, so I thought I’d give it a shot myself.

Artwork by imlih.wInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/imlih.w/

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Jam Family Records

2017

Strap into your gaming chair, pull up a juice box and launch right into 1997 with ‘Fresh Splash’ – the single from newest Jam Family Records artist Dual Citizen. This song is a sun-drenched sonic odyssey that feels the mix of Crusin’ USA [...]Read More →

2017

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